'Azzun 'Atma, Jubara (Kafriat), Tue 7.5.13, Morning
A meeting at Kafr Sur with the intention of gathering information about Palestinians who are regularly unable to reach their plots in the junction area, in order to cultivate them. Jabara after the fence which separated the village from the West Bank was removed. The new fence at Azoun Atma.
10:50 Eliyahu Gate CP
There are few cars in both directions, no delays.
11:20 Kafr Sur
G. hosted us in his house. According to him the main problem of the village inhabitants is that of the permits. Not all the inhabitants succeed in getting permits to pass through the agricultural gates
in order to reach their plots which are beyond the separation fence. There is no physical impediment to reach the plots, even the plots beyond Sal'it, but there are still families where only the elderly parents, who have difficulty working, get the permits, but not their sons.
The Sal'it gate is opened twice a days (in the morning and in the afternoon) for half an hour. He himself also has an authorization to pass through the Jabara CP, which remained open the whole day, and from there he passed to his plots which were near the gate in the Jabara fence. This gate was closed when the Jabara CP was dismantled. There is a new gate (804) which hasn't been opened yet and nobody knows when this will happen.
12:20 We continue northwards on the road to Tul Karem. We pass A-Ras, the T junction with the road that leads to Tul Karem under road 557, where there used to be a CP and where we used to make our observations. We reach the junction with the System Road, where - till last week – there was the CP which separated the village from the rest of the bank. We stopped for photographs. Two soldiers who stood at the junction came up to us and asked us what we were doing. We said that we were on our way to the village and they explained that they still had about two weeks' work before the CP would be finally dismantled.
13:00 Jabara
We tried to contact A. in order to hear about the significance of the removal of the fence for the entire village – but to no avail.
We reached the house of Abu Hatam and the double gate in the separation fence. After a few photographs two military policemen came up on the other side and asked us how we got there and asked us not to take photographs. On the way back through the village the grocery was still closed. We were told that everybody was a the prayer in the (new?) mosque.
We returned via the same route we came on, Azoun and the Eliyahu Gate. There were no delays.
14:15 Azoun Atma
On the road, from the Oranit junction on, a larger number than usual of army vehicles passed. We met some near the CP. They brought food for the soldiers. No Palestinians passed while we stayed there. Two of the soldiers identified us from the encounter with the officers at Habla. According to them the new fence was due to replace the existing one which has too many loopholes. It is now being built according to the regular standard of a separation obstacle, with a system roads and fences on both sides. According to his estimate it will take some months to finish the fence.
According to him there is no intention to include the buildings of Azoun Atma which are situated to the south of the road leading to the settlements of Sha'arey Tiquva and Elkana or the road itself in the area of the village or the Bank. He was unable to reply to our question what the meaning of the earthworks, which look like a preparation for a road south of the southern part of the village, was.